


Ronan ad Scrīniō

by WildandWhirling



Series: Between the Waves [1]
Category: 1789: Les Amants de la Bastille - Various Composers/Attia & Chouquet
Genre: Actual Shit Ronan Mazurier, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-30 17:50:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20101219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WildandWhirling/pseuds/WildandWhirling
Summary: Lazare has a very important report to finish. Ronan has other things in mind.





	Ronan ad Scrīniō

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fanfeline](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fanfeline/gifts).

> Done for fanfeline as a response to the prompt: "Distracting kisses from someone that are meant to stop the other person from finishing their work, and give them kisses instead." 
> 
> I personally had a lot of fun with this one; this is honestly one of my favorite tropes to apply to Peyronan because it's very, very RONAN, and Lazare's POV is always a treat to get into, especially when he's not going through devastating heartbreak (though "being chased by a goose" is obviously fair game).
> 
> Thank you so, so much to Moorehawke for beta-ing this one.

_ To the Baron de Besenval:  _ __   
_   
_ __ Dear Sir, 

_ Hoping this letter finds you in fair condition. The situation in Paris grows worse by the second. Not a day passes when some new incident does not occur to-- _

Lazare stilled. He waved the pen held between his index finger and thumb back and forth in a repetitive, even motion, as if that action alone would intimidate the thing into releasing the words held within it onto the page. He’d never had much of a way with words, he knew that. He acknowledged that. He scarcely needed it for his chosen career, anyway. His men had no need for him to recite Robinson Crusoe to them during drills, and he had never offered it. 

But, unfortunately, with certain people, a dramatic flourish was needed to let them understand that they were on the verge of an outright Fronde. Not exaggerating the truth or misrepresenting the situation, but putting it into language that they could understand, like speaking to a very, very small human being who hadn’t yet understood that “cats” and “dogs” were separate creatures. 

His education had been limited, Latin and the rest of the pagan world had been strictly kept away from him (which had caused him a certain amount of of embarrassment at Court.) Too much temptation, there. 

However, he did recall once hearing a phrase that the Romans had when situations were dire: “Hannibal is at the gates.”

It was his own personal assessment that that would be an incorrect term to use in this instance. Hannibal was not at the gates. Odoacer was in their salon, lying on a chaise and leisurely sipping his tenth glass of brandy from the private stock. 

Sighing, barely sparing a glance at the new orders for his men, detailing exactly where Besenval wanted them to move this time (the man changed his opinions on the matter like some men changed their outfits: At least twice a day, and more if he was in an anxious state), he laid the tip of the pen against the paper again, even as he dreaded it blotting. He would have to write  _ something _ , no use putting it off. He would end up writing ten or so more drafts, anyway. 

_ To completely confound the mind. Reason has been abandoned for utter madness, which can be felt in all hours and at all corners of the city. And the lower class, who would not have dreamt of such a thing five years past, have found themselves emboldened to voice the most impudent ideas, the pulpit they gather around being that of the cáfe demagogue instead of the priest. In general, it is impossible to go anywhere without feeling a sense of restlessness-- _

“What’re you doing?” Ronan murmured against his neck, arms wrapping snugly around him. “Looks important.” 

“I’m-I-I am working on a report for my superior,” the Comte de Peyrol managed to resist the temptation of falling into the warmth. 

“Hm.” If Ronan connected the words “report” and “superior” together, he didn’t seem to care, only nuzzling firmer into his neck.

Domestic life, Lazare could find it in him to admit, finally, after years of scoffing at men who had chosen it, had its benefits. Even in an army life, it could be...pleasant to have someone to come home to after a long day. Soothing. Lazare had rarely enjoyed returning to his room after drills, or in eating or drinking or sleeping. They were parts of a routine, one more thing to be marked off of a long list. 

Truth be told, he enjoyed very little. He’d long since supposed that when other men spoke of happiness, either they were exaggerating or, most likely, he was simply not intended to have it, the satisfaction of well placed and well performed duty taking its place. 

And then a scrawny peasant with a large mouth from the Beauce crashed into his life and he’d had to radically readjust his preconceptions. 

All that being said, however, it could be very, very inconvenient, especially when said peasant seemed to be doing his utmost to distract him, fingers tugging at his neck tie while he tried to angle for a kiss. (Really, knowing Ronan, he supposed that he was lucky that he wasn’t untying his neck tie. Ronan was many things, but oblique was not one of them.)

“He wants it done as soon as possible.” 

“Hm.” Ronan caught his upper lip, and Lazare was dimly aware of the pen dropping to the desk with a “clink” muted by the paper. 

It would probably spot, damn it. But it was hard to focus on that when all his attention was firmly on Ronan’s lips against his, on the warmth of Ronan’s rough hands as they caressed his cheek before moving to tug at his hair, on the way that their noses bumped together, still imperfect despite the many, many hours they’d spent practicing. Ronan had only recently come from the printing shop, still smelling faintly of sweat and ink, and Lazare should have been repulsed by it, but only found himself tilting up more because, despite everything else, it was  _ Ronan _ . 

“You...are...incorrigible,” he murmured, in between small, brief kisses. It would have sounded much, much more convincing, even to his own ears, if he wasn’t absent-mindedly returning them, instinct guiding his actions. 

“It’s why you keep me around,” Ronan said, and he could feel the peasant’s little smirk against his mouth. 

And then, he remembered that he had a report to write. 

A report that Ronan was expertly distracting him from as he plopped onto Lazare’s lap as if it was his natural, God-given seat. He was reminded of a cat sprawling in the sun, claiming twice its own size in terms of space as Ronan leaned in for another kiss. 

“ _ Now _ , Ronan.” 

“Little while longer?” Ronan brushed his nose against Lazare’s cheek. 

Lazare gave him a look that was the very picture of exasperation. He had no time to be seduced by Ronan’s peasant wiles. Not now, at least. No matter how much Ronan tried to the contrary. He would be absolutely firm with this. 

“Alright, alright, I’ll be good, I’ll be good.” Ronan abandoned Lazare’s lap, which felt curiously empty in his absence. Cold. 

He really had become complacent, in recent days. Careless with what he had started to grow accustomed to.

  
  
“I believe that  _ that _ is entirely beyond you.” 

“That’s the other reason you keep me around.” 

Lazare shook his head, even as a slight smile remained on his face that would render it totally unrecognizable to anyone who saw him in the streets or the training ground. 

“Look,” Ronan said, falling onto the chaise with a clumsiness that made Lazare wince in sympathy for the poor thing. “I’ll sit right here the whole time. Not going to bother you at all. I’m going to sit here and watch my man work. Nothing else. I won’t even think about it.” 

Despite the confidence in Ronan’s words, Lazare found himself doubting it. Ronan could try, but in the end, his own impulsive nature would win. (Would he have had him any other way? As a tamed, compliant form of himself that did everything in a rational, well-thought out way and who never stepped out of line? Would he have even noticed him if he had?) 

Still, Ronan was surprisingly true to his word. Time passed on, and he didn’t rise from the chaise, nor did he make so much as a comment on the weather, the only sound throughout the entire apartment being the scratch of Lazare’s pen against the paper, the sun warming his hand from where it shone through the window and the heavily brocaded curtains that hung off of it. 

It was peaceful, a quiet afternoon of work. 

Too peaceful. 

He spared a glance over to where Ronan laid, half-expecting to discover that, while he was occupied, the space around him had been reduced to smouldering ruins, but there he was, as normal as it was in his capacity to be, sprawled out on the chaise, watching him intently. The sunlight hit his body just right so that he looked aglow, like a living embodiment of summer that had decided to settle into his apartment one day. Ronan was rough, he would never deny it (he would never wish to), and he was short, and his limbs were boney and gangly from years of malnourishment, but that scarcely mattered, because when he was like this, still and at rest, but with that current of energy still  _ there _ beneath the surface, fresh and alive as ever, he could still match any artist’s favorite model. 

As Lazare lowered his head back to the paper and the subject at hand, the one that had seemed so important not too long ago, he caught the slightest hint of a grin out of the corner of his eye. 

“What is it?”    
  


“You just look so cute like that, when you’re trying to think of something and your face scrunches up.” 

...He did not look  _ cute _ . He could accept “handsome,” though he always considered it to be something of an exaggeration, all things told. “Dashing,” even though that had something of the air of a fairy story that he didn’t like. “Intelligent.” “Studious.” 

But the Comte de Peyrol was not  _ cute _ . 

Caught unexpectedly, his brain went to the next best thing. “It does not scrunch.” 

“Does too.” 

“Not.” 

“Too.” 

“Not.” 

Even when he was a child, he’d never had this kind of...utterly mindless quarrel (he’d never been allowed to), but he also couldn’t find it in himself to give up and let Ronan  _ win _ . However, just as he was in the process of rolling his eyes, Ronan got up and walked over to him, pressing his lips to the creases in his forehead, and, after, Ronan’s voice, with more than a hint of triumph. 

“Too.” 

Faced with overwhelming evidence in favor of it, Lazare could concede it: His face did “scrunch up” when he was focused on something. He still firmly held to the other, though. He was  _ not _ “cute.” 

“I believe that you said you would  _ stay _ on the chaise.” 

“Hey,” Ronan pressed his forehead against Lazare’s, “You started it.” 

And then, before he knew it, he was kissing Ronan, or Ronan was kissing him, he wasn’t sure who started it, and it really didn’t matter at that point because whatever hope he’d had for productivity was gone. The Baron de Besenval would have to wait at least another two hours for his report. By which time Lazare was certain that he would have new orders, anyway, and so really it was...a simple matter of conserving paper. 

Ronan slid back onto his lap, and this time, Lazare offered no complaints, his hand moving to the nape of Ronan’s neck, anchoring him while Ronan pressed small kisses to his mouth, cheek, and jaw, and Lazare could feel his grin against him, as Ronan didn’t even try to hide his satisfaction with getting exactly what he’d wanted from him since the beginning. (Really, his idealistic peasant had a tendency of extracting exactly what he wanted from him, and Lazare would have complained more if he generally wasn’t so pleased with the results, and if seeing Ronan happy and at ease didn’t spark such a curious  _ warmth _ in him.)

“My report,” Lazare said, and not even he believed that it was a serious attempt. 

“Come on, Peyrol,” Ronan caught his upper lip, and he didn’t try to turn him away. “You’ll do better once you’ve had a break, anyway. You always focus so much your brain stops working, then you spend too much time trying to figure it out when the answer’s right in front of you. I’m just helping you out.” 

At least, Lazare reasoned, if he conceded to Ronan’s...pressing demands, then he would be free to do exactly as he wanted later. Really, it was an investment, not a waste of time. And he had, truth be told, lost whatever he’d been trying to think of the second he’d seen Ronan laid out on the couch. (He’d probably arranged himself deliberately on the couch to attract his attention, the little monster.)

And then, Ronan had to look over the contents of his desk and ruin it. 

“Hey, Lazare, I don’t know much about this kind of thing, but I think there’s a big blot on some of the words there. Hey, what do those weird looking marks mean? Wait, are those troop movements?” 

  
Lazare groaned against Ronan’s neck. He  _ had _ chosen a revolutionary, hadn’t he?  _ “Ronan Mazurier.”  _

Incorrigible. Utterly incorrigible. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Minor Thing: According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, "Cute" TECHNICALLY came into common usage in English in 1731, but at the time, the meaning was more "Smart" or "Refined," since it came from "acute." But there really isn't another term that would WORK, since "Endearing" is the closest English equivalent I could think of and...that's much more Lazare than Ronan.


End file.
